How To Reduce CPC In Google Ads
Lowering your cost per click inside Google Ads requires a strategic approach across multiple campaign elements. Four proven methods can bring that cost per click down to get more clicks, more sales, more leads, and better ROI. Cost per click is a cost assigned to every time someone clicks on one of your ads. This could be a display ad, search ad, or YouTube video.
What Is CPC In Google Ads?
Cost per click is how much you’re being charged every time someone clicks on your ad. If someone clicks on your search ad it may cost two dollars or ten dollars. There’s a lot of factors that go into determining your cost per click. Google works as an auction house where everyone bids for the first, second, third position and depending on how much you’re bidding, how good your quality score is, which is essentially how much Google likes your ad, you’re going to place somewhere in there and Google’s going to determine what your cost per click is going to be.
1st Ways To Reduce CPC In Google Ads
The first way to lower cost per click is changing up keywords. Sometimes a keyword just is not going to be successful. You can have a 10 out of 10 quality score, an amazing conversion rate, everything could be good on the back end however the cost per click is just way too high. Things you can attempt to do is build out new ad groups. Adding new ad groups allows Google to test new things, especially in accounts that are already performing well.
Testing New Ad Groups and Keywords
A keyword that may have popped up in your search term report can become the foundation for a new ad group. Try new ads, new keywords, maybe a broad phrase match, exact match, something new with it and test this new keyword out. Maybe it performs better than the old keyword, maybe it doesn’t, but A/B testing delivers better results in the long run. This is an effective way to bring down cost per click long term and should be done especially in the first few months to figure out what keywords to actually go after. Some keywords are just too expensive and no matter what you do you’re not going to be able to profitably bid on them just because the competition is too high. It’s better to spend budget elsewhere, pause these keywords and move on.
Changing Keyword Match Types
Changing up the actual match type can also help. Try broad match or phrase match, especially if you’re on exact match which is very limited. Give it a little bit more wiggle room with phrase match or broad match so it’s a little bit more lenient and it can find different search terms that may be cheaper, helping bring cost per click down as well.
2nd Ways To Reduce CPC In Google Ads
The second way of bringing cost per click down inside Google Ads is adjusting all the settings around keywords. Audiences, devices, and days of the week are all areas where you can set bid adjustments, especially in smaller campaigns. This is a great way to bring down costs per click. The main reason for this is if Google doesn’t have enough data it’s not going to adjust all of this automatically.
Manual adjustments can bring your cost per click down quite a bit. If you go into location settings and notice that one city is much more expensive on a cost per click basis than another city and the results just aren’t that great, you can set a negative bid adjustment for that city. This signals to Google that you don’t want to bid on this as much because it’s too expensive. If the cost per click becomes affordable you will bid on it, but when the cost per click is too high you won’t.
Adjusting Days Of The Week
Going into the days of the week is another effective adjustment. Weekends are often more expensive especially for service-based businesses. Results may vary depending on your specific business and you have to look at the actual data, but many times the weekends are more expensive and the results aren’t that great because people have a lot of time to look around. Setting a negative bid adjustment for Saturday and Sunday if you choose to run those days tells Google that you know these leads and these cost per clicks are a little bit higher and you don’t want to spend this money.
Setting Negative Bid Adjustments
Negative bid adjustment means if you do get clicks on these days. They come through, but you’re not going to pay a lot for them. This brings your cost per click down and makes sure your average cost per click is much lower. Another setting that is often overlooked is audiences. Audiences need to be analyzed carefully. Changing audiences on the first month is not recommended. Wait for a decent amount of data to pile up, at least two months in. Then look at it, adjusting some of these audience segments to target the right people.
Adjust it very minimally but if there are audiences that are converting. However they’re a bit more expensive, put a negative bid adjustment. Just like with the days of the week or the location settings. This tells Google the cost per click is just too high for this segment and you want it lower. Setting a negative bid adjustment communicates this isn’t the right fit at current prices. If you can get it lower it works, but otherwise it’s not worth it.
3rd Ways To Reduce CPC In Google Ads
The third way to decrease cost per click is using the Search Partners Network. The Search Partners Network is generally not a great network to be on for lead quality. However, if you are looking to lower your cost per click the Search Partners Network.
Evaluating The Search Partners Network
You can get a lot of cheap clicks there. Be very careful, check your results, make sure the leads are still of high quality. Before converting everything over especially if you have multiple campaigns. Understand that the Search Partners Network generally doesn’t have the same quality of leads. Just because it’s not as monitored by Google’s own organic search engine. This is another way to lower cost per click if you need more leads. You need a lower cost per click. Enabling the Search Partners Network is simple and it is another viable way of getting a lower cost per click.
4th Ways To Reduce CPC In Google Ads
The fourth and final way of decreasing your cost per click and reducing your overall cost inside Google Ads is to aim for a higher quality score. Quality score essentially dives into three main factors. The first is expected click-through rate, which is what Google’s AI is thinking when someone sees your ad. How likely are they to click your ad in Google’s mind and Google’s AI’s mind. When they actually see your ad and it pops up in front of them. The higher the expected click-through rate is the higher quality score will likely be. The second part of this is ad relevance. When someone actually does click on your ad, is this ad going to be relevant to them. If you have an ad that says HVAC but people are searching for plumbing repairs, those two things aren’t relevant.
Focusing On Landing Page Experience
Ad relevance affects your quality score so you want your ad to be super relevant to whatever keyword someone typed in. The final thing is landing page experience. When someone sees your ad, clicks on it, the ad is relevant to them and they go to your landing page, is the landing page easy to use, is it quick to load, does it give them what they want. These are factors that will make or break your quality score. A poor landing page results in a low quality score and unfortunately a lot of people overlook landing pages. Landing pages are super important. There’s a lot of basic factors that you need to get right. It’s not super complex to have an amazing landing page but these basic principles matter.
Optimizing For Google’s AI
Having a fast page load speed, making sure it’s easy to read, making sure there’s good headlines in there that actually match your ads, all these things are relevant to Google’s AI when it actually scans your landing page. Google evaluates whether this is relevant, whether people like your landing page, whether they are submitting their emails or calling you or whatever action you want them to take, whether they’re actually doing this. This is all important and all goes into actually contributing to your quality score. Mastering these three things brings your quality score much higher. The general principle is if you had a five quality score Google didn’t give you a boost and it didn’t dock you anything.
Aiming For A Quality Score Discount
Inside the auction house essentially the same principles apply. If you have below a five Google’s going to tax you. It’s called the Google tax because Google doesn’t like your ads so it might penalize you. Google doesn’t release this data but it’s not beneficial for your campaigns. What you want to aim for is generally a 7 or above, meaning Google’s going to give you a discount. It likes your ads, it likes how your keywords are, it likes the ad relevance, it likes the landing page experience. If you can get a seven or above generally you’re going to get a discount and you’re going to get a much lower cost per click. Having a high quality score is very important to make sure your cost per click is as low as possible.
Optimization Checklist
Optimizing your campaign further requires a systematic approach. A comprehensive optimization checklist covers everything you need to do on a weekly, monthly and three month basis. It allows you to track results and ensure consistent campaign management. Anyone using Google Ads should have a checklist to ensure important tasks get completed. Looking at your landing page, looking at your ads, and A/B testing this content needs to happen regularly. A checklist ensures you don’t forget and you go in there on a regular basis to optimize the account to get a lower cost per click.
